How popular is the baby name Sumter in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Sumter.

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Popularity of the baby name Sumter


Posts that mention the name Sumter

Babies named for the Battle of Fort Sumter

Battle of Fort Sumter (1861)
Battle of Fort Sumter

Fort Sumter — the sea fort near Charleston, South Carolina — wasn’t fully built yet in the spring of 1861 when the Battle of Fort Sumter kicked off the Civil War. The Second Battle of Fort Sumter, two years later, reduced the never-finished fort to rubble. (It has since been restored and is now a National Park.)

As with the Battle of Gettysburg, the two Fort Sumter battles had a small influence on baby names. I found about a dozen U.S. babies — all male, all born in the South — named “Fort Sumter”:

  • Fort Sumter Williamson (North Carolina, c1861)
  • Fort Sumter Roebuck (Virginia, c1861)
  • Fort Sumter Richards (South Carolina, 1861)
  • Fort Sumter Earle (Alabama, 1864)
  • Fort Sumter Sparrow (Alabama?, 1867)
  • Fort Sumter Liscomb (Texas, 1869) — but buried as a “John“
  • Fort Sumter Brooks (Georgia, 1877)
  • Fort Sumter Sumter (Louisiana, 1881) — yes, Sumter twice
  • Fort Sumter Black (Georgia?, 1881)
  • Fort Sumter Cannon (Georgia, 1884)
  • Fort Sumter Everett (Virginia, 1900)
  • Fort Sumter Falls (North Carolina, 1910)

Notice how only half of them were born in the 1860s. A few — like “Fort Sumter Cannon” and “Fort Sumter Falls” — may have gotten the name simply because of the play on words.

Source: Battle of Fort Sumter – Wikipedia

Unusual real name: Panama Canal

The steamship "Alliance" using the Panama Canal (mid-1914)
Steamship using the Panama Canal (1914)

The Panama Canal is a man-made waterway built across the Isthmus of Panama that significantly reduces the time it takes for a ship to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

In the 1880s and 1890s, the country of France — which had been involved in the creation of the Suez Canal several decades earlier — attempted, but ultimately failed, to construct a canal across Panama.

In 1904, the United States took over construction of the canal. Newspapers in the U.S. regularly reported on the progress of the project, particularly as it got closer to completion.

Finally, in mid-1914, the Panama Canal — which had come to symbolize “U.S. technological prowess and economic power” — opened to commercial traffic.

And by then it also had at least one human namesake: Panama Canal Caldwell, a baby girl born in Iredell County, North Carolina, in August of 1912.

I don’t know why her parents gave her the name “Panama Canal,” but I do know that she chose to go by the nickname “Pam” during her life.

(Pam was the youngest of six children. Her older siblings were named Ruby, Sumter, Tascal, Elizabeth, and Wadsworth.)

Sources: Panama Canal – Wikipedia, Building the Panama Canal – Office of the Historian, FamilySearch.org, Panama Canal Caldwell – Find a Grave

Image: Clipping from The Day Book (19 Jun. 1914)

[Latest update: Apr. 2024]